This is an exploratory study which employs a qualitative research method to investigate the nature of power relation among schools in Hong Kong. In recent years, the Education and Development Bureau initiated a series of education reform which caused the intensification of teacher's work, the decline of trust on teacher, and the compression of professional autonomy. Among these various reform measures, the "Key Performance Measures" caused the greatest impact on Hong Kong schools.In the context of educational reform in Hong Kong, disciplinary technologies penetrated every school and affected the daily work of teachers through the consecution of "Key Performance Measures". This was a top-down and continuous process of power execution. During this process, a productive relationship among disciplinary technologies, power, and knowledge was developed. First of all, a disciplinary truth was legitimized through the training course of members in external assessment. With the implementation of school internal assessment, this disciplinary truth penetrated through every section in the school, and is then endorsed by the process of external assessment. Through the above process, a set of disciplinary truth was produced, enhanced, and extended to become a network of power which began to govern the souls of all stakeholders in school. Finally, this disciplinary truth completed its self-reproduction process through the execution of power and develops into an eternal truth. Whether practitioners agreed or disagreed with it, they were forced to express their loyalty and to implement it whole-heartedly. Even after conducting an external assessment, this disciplinary truth still governs every teacher's soul because principals and panel chairpersons firmly stick to it as the standard for assessing the performance of teacher's daily work. This disciplinary truth is perpetuated by the collaborated efforts of stakeholders in schools. Therefore, a power relation is not developed by A affecting B's behavior once, but is a long-term interactive negotiation process between A and B. Once a power relation starts to execute, it would be circulated within the power web. No one could totally handle or even control it, and it puts all the stakeholders into its eventual observable situation. Under the governance by the "eye of power", A and B participates in the process of negotiation between surveillance and resistance and becomes a continuous process of negotiation. This is the manifested state of the nature of power and is confirmed by this research.Finally, this research discovered that the "Key Performance Measures" had the greatest impact on schools. We suggest that the assessment standard should be grounded on and supported by more academic researches. The "Key Performance Measures" should include qualitative descriptions beyond classroom teaching, accept diversified values, and offer schools more autonomy to develop their own educational ideals. It should offer the autonomy for schools to develop their own characteristics rather than trying to mode every school into a standard model. Schools should try their best to reduce teachers' work load, and focus on transferring the authority and autonomy back to teachers in order to develop their professional confidence. These should be considered as important paths to teacher empowerment. Teachers should develop the critical awareness in order to clearly understand the productive relationship between power and knowledge. They should also try their best to fight for the emancipation of their souls. Teachers' participation in decision making of school policies should be perceived as the essential pathway to professional development.
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